English
Elegy for the Blessed Rukn al-Din Masoud
Death spares no human being; the king of death shows no mercy to anyone.
The decree of death falls upon all the world; it does not single out only you and me.
The looting hand of misfortune ransacks the house of existence, for these times demand nothing less.
There is not a single instant when this upside down bowl of fate does not conjure a thousand tricks from itself.
Sudden fortunes come, and ruin trails right behind them; deeply heedless is the one who does not watch the show.
What choice have we but to submit, when fate never consults us before shaping our destiny?
Every moment they bring before us, from behind the veil of destiny, a new turmoil that never resembles the last.
A storm of chaos has broken from this troublemaking cloud; Lord, what disasters now stand revealed.
In the very pride of fortune, suddenly from some corner the hand of time turns everyone's affairs upside down.
Nothing but treachery is the rule of this age and its people; they have all taken on the color of the times.
They cut off the very head they swore loyalty to, and slay the very one they had promised protection.
No shame before people, no fear of God; no awe for religious law, no dignity for knowledge.
When they address or scold one another, no tongue speaks but the tongue of the blade.
And if from afar they send messages to each other, their messages are nothing but sharpened arrows.
When the age placed its command in the hand of chaos, Gog and Magog breached the great wall of Alexander.
Whoever grasps the true measure of his own pain and affliction is present in body yet no longer himself.
Whatever heart's desire the wheel of fortune grants a person, the wise call it nothing but blood money for his own death.
In such a state, the wise, if he had the means, would walk into the alley of nonexistence on his own feet.
They abandoned the religion of God, and each person invented a religion after his own liking, to serve himself.
Made hungry by greed, they thirst for one another's blood, like someone who has grown weary of his own survival.
It is hard to trust anyone, when this is how one deals even with one's own leader.
Whoever walks the path of treachery like the age itself will also receive from the age his just reward.
Alas, the cause of learning and virtue has fallen into ruin; the sun of faith has plunged from heaven's peak into the dust.
Friends and loved ones all sit in grief; the heartbroken wait for the promise of a healing balm.
A handful, black cloaked like stars in the dark night, sit awaiting the greatest luminary.
The world of generosity and kindness has vanished from our midst, and now the whole world sits mourning him.
In the narrow house of hearts, at his funeral, sorrow and pain and misery sit together.
The world conquering dawn held its breath, and in grief for him, wherever you look, two or three companions sit.
The ship of hope is stranded on dry land, and the people of learning sit in the dust, weeping like dew.
You would ask: where have virtue, knowledge, and meaning gone? Generosity and grace are no more; they sit in mourning.
Every breath the dawn draws, it draws from the depth of its pain; that is why it breathes such cold, heavy sighs.
When the chessboard of events fell into a bloody hand, see how the game collapsed under a crippled hand.
The light of the eye hid itself behind the veil of destiny, and fell, uncared for, into the grip of a base opponent.
The hand of death grew strong and played a strange move; in striking the king, a checkmate escaped from it.
What pain, what regret, that at the hand of death's army the banner of knowledge fell low, like the hand of generosity.
The scarlet tulip withered in the wind of death, and fell from the throne of fortune into dust and blood.
The foundation of learning was ruined all at once; how can the roof stand firm once the pillar has fallen?
Planning is helpless against the workings of destiny; it was a great matter, yet now it has come to pass.
The flood of death ruined the city of meanings; the tyranny of the wheel turned the sea of meanings into a mirage.
The bond of gladness with this age has been severed; the veil of honor over life and wealth has been torn.
A state that in the mind is like the Day of Resurrection: the eye took no lesson from it, and that too was seen.
By night it sleeps, by day the eye looks about without his face; so tears have every right to turn to blood.
The bare headed pen went wailing and turned like a cloud; the pulpit bent its frame, moaning like the grieving pillar.
Alas that beneath the stone of the wheel's cruelty there stayed a hand that had been made for giving.
What pain, that the hands of fools debased the one who had been raised in the bosom of generosity.
We beat our heads with the foam of sorrow, like the sea, for a ruby of Badakhshan has dripped away from the mine of generosity.
If a human is filled by earth in a single breath, then why is the earth never filled by humans?
May the fresh new shoot of the tree of religious law endure, and may the light of its beauty drive sorrow from our hearts.
He is the royal falcon of the faith, and now he has opened his eyes; may his blessed glory be a shade like the wing of the phoenix.
Upon the branch of the pulpit sits a sweet voiced parrot; may our souls be sacrificed for that sugar showing parrot.
In the narrow terror of this harsh calamity, may his words be a comfort to the burdened hearts.
For those wounded by the blow of the age's cruelty, may the sight of the master be a balm and a bringer of ease.
May patience and mercy that clip the wings of grief descend upon those who dwell behind the veil of honor.
May God, until the trumpet of resurrection sounds, be the guardian and helper of small and great, present and absent.
May Masoud be fortunate upon the tree of bliss in that other world, and may the end of everyone's affairs be praiseworthy.